Relaxing music v. emotional memory

One of the ways we can help cope with high-stress events is to do things that, strange as it might sound, interfere with our brain’s ability to remember the emotions. Music has that power. Psychology researchers at Monash University in Australia took a look at the ability of relaxing music to lower the impact of traumatic events and found a strong correlation between listening to the music and reduced recall of an emotional story.

The research abstract is available here, with a link to the full article (payment required).

I find myself wondering if we would do well to play relaxing music at the start of every crisis intervention. In any case, it’s probably a good idea to have your own playlist of relaxing music ready to listen to after a critical incident.